


don't say that you won't live forever

by proximally



Series: abandoned works [16]
Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Noncanonical Character Undeath, Not Everybody Lives/Some People Undie, Spoilers for Ancient Rome Sidequest (Rusty Quill Gaming), T for swears
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:07:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27387679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/proximally/pseuds/proximally
Summary: Sasha wakes up one morning, at the ripe old age of 83, when she probably shouldn't have.
Relationships: Sasha Racket & Sasha's kids
Series: abandoned works [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1981928
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10
Collections: Good Intentions: Abandoned and Unfinished WIPs





	don't say that you won't live forever

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [lich sasha & grizzop [body horror warning]](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/709420) by proximally. 



> title from the lyrics of Don't Give In by Snow Patrol.
> 
> written in february-ish?? well before RQG156 anyway.
> 
> if you'd like to take the concept and run with it, please feel free! i'd really appreciate this being linked back to though. (unless it's mature/explicit, in which case. Don't.)

Sasha comes awake, gently, to the sound of the sparrows that have nested in the roof for the last twelve years, generation after generation. They’re noisy little things, and admittedly some mornings when she’s not doing her best - more often than not, lately - they can be supremely irritating. Today, though, it’s just nice.

And then she realises there’s sunlight falling across her face, and _that_ means it’s late morning verging on early afternoon, and she’s _told_ them, just because she’s old and her old injuries are acting up, doesn’t mean she wants a damn _lie-in_ , there’s still work she can do--

Sasha rolls out of bed. Or, more accurately, slowly sits up. Slowly swings each leg out from under the blankets. Uses the specially-installed handrail to leverage herself up and onto her feet. She’s still wearing her clothes from yesterday, it seems, and it’s so late in the day she’s not about to waste time changing, especially when there’s no new bloodstains on her bed linens; she’s not about to waste this reprieve. 

So, she gets up. Toes on the sandals left by her door, and stomps downstairs - as best she can with her old lady bones, anyway - to the kitchens where she’s sure there’ll be _someone_ to grump at.

Quintus is who she finds, one of the older kids who never quite took to weapons or stealth but makes a damn good eel quiche - and, well, she says ‘kid’ but she’s pretty sure he’s approaching thirty at this point. He’s sweeping the floor, or trying to - Paulina, who’s maybe six or seven (difficult to tell, with halflings), is doing her best to help and is mostly just getting in the way. 

“Paulina-” he tries. “Paulina, please, I’ve got this, just- go outside. Okay?”

“But _Quintus-”_

“ _Please_. Go bothe-- go _find_ Laelius or, or something, now’s...now’s not a good time, kiddo.”

Sasha frowns. He sounds exhausted. Even then, it’s not like him to get so short with the little ones. Did something happen? What’s she missed? Is this why nobody came to wake her?

“Everything alright, Quintus?”

Quintus startles, and drops his broom; Paulina just lights up and rushes over, practically vibrating with all her six-year-old energy. Gods, she misses it.

“Ava!” she cries. “Quintus won’t let me have the _brooooooom!_ Pleeeease, I just wanna help, tell him to let me help!”

Sasha can’t even slightly get down to Paulina’s level - she’d need to be sitting, at least, and hell if she’d ever manage to get back up again after - but she takes the little girl’s hand in hers and tells her, “I’ll give him a good talking-to, don’t you worry - but in the meantime, why don’t you see if Laelius has anything for you to help out with, yeah?”

Paulina grins, a little smug. “Okay, boss!” she chirps, and scarpers off to find the poor unsuspecting head of maintenance. Sasha can’t help but smile after her.

Still. There’s a heartfelt conversation to be had, apparently, and she can’t do it while lurking in the doorway.

“Y’alright, Quintus?” she says. “You’re looking a bit rough.” She stops in front of him - still unmoving - and peers at his face. Pale and drawn, bags under his eyes like he hasn’t slept a wink, still clutching at the air where the broom used to be. She lays a hand on his shoulder and squeezes it, trying to school her expression more into sympathy than the pure worry she feels. “Go take a kip, kid, you know you can take a day off if you need it.”

Quintus looks down at the hand on his shoulder almost dumbfounded, and, hesitantly, returns the gesture.

“Ava?” he asks, voice faint.

“Who’s askin’?” she replies, grin tugging at her lips despite her concern.

“Are you _really_ …?” he trails off.

“I’m really thinking you should take a nap right about now, or at least go talk to Caecilia. Where's Cassius today? He'd set you straight,” she says, hoping to lighten the mood a little. She’s got a lot better at puns, she thinks; Quintus at least has the decency to laugh - usually, anyway, ‘cause now he’s just looking at her like she’s grown an extra head.

[...]

“You _died!”_ he blurts out.

“--last week- ‘scuse me?”

“You-- boss, last night-- it was getting late, so Maximus tried to wake you, but you-- you were _gone._ ” He’s getting quite distressed, voice cracking and eyes wet. “We, we moved you upstairs, so little ones wouldn’t see, we were gonna, a funeral, Maximus and Agrippina with the grave by, by the shrine, and, and--”

It’s been over half a century since Sasha slipped from her second family’s hands and landed in this one and she’s still not very good at physical affection, but she crushes Quintus in a hug anyway and awkwardly pats him on the back as he makes her shoulder uncomfortably damp.

After a few moments, he stills and pulls away, though his hands remain on her shoulders, face possibly even more distraught than it was before. “Boss, you don’t have a heartbeat.”

Sasha frowns. Checks her pulse. Checks her pulse _again_ , because maybe her circulation’s just crap. Opens and shuts her hands a few times. Pinches the bridge of her nose, and just sighs.

“Mother _fucker.”_

* * *

An emergency meeting is called. 

Priscilla and her team are out on a job and aren’t due back for another month, and Marcus and Big Maximus are out vetting a potential client for another few days, so there are a number of empty seats in the Discussion Room.

As the senior members trickle in, Sasha is simultaneously touched and amused by their expressions as they realise she’s (apparently) alive. That concerned and confused disbelief, morphing into shock, morphing into joy - she’s never thought about her funeral. Never thought about what happens after she dies - oh, she’s had contingencies in place for the last fifty years, because it’s just that kind of job and never in a million years would she have expected to live this long, but she’d never spared a thought for the emotional fallout of her passing and it hits her all at once as she realises they love her just as much as she loves them. 

(A few years after they started picking up strays, one of the kids - Nona, a little half-orc, she’d have been what, maybe nine? ten? she’s retired now, off in the Pyrenees with her spouse, and she still sends letters - knocked on Sasha’s office door and bashfully asked permission to call herself Nona Husaskingus. Sasha’d agreed, slightly baffled why she'd need to give permission, and not understood the significance of it until some time later. She never introduced herself as a Rackett, never really felt like reclaiming it for herself even centuries removed from the family that gave it to her; she’s just Sasha, or Boss, and anyway - who’s asking?)

(At least half the kids have taken the Husaskingus name, at this point, and they wear it like a badge of honour. _I’m Nona, who’s askin’?_ )

**Author's Note:**

> \- listening to taz means i cannot see liches as inherently evil anymore lmao  
> \- anyway sasha lich. learns a bit o necromancy. brings grizzop back. both run the [REDACTED 156 SPOILERS] and turn up post-rome sidequest like "'sup guys we took the long way round"  
> \- sasha has been working on these puns for the last 1800 years and the party'd better appreciate them


End file.
